Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 23rd, 2026

[Scott Harris]

Probably, yes.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Why “probably”?

[Scott Harris]

I'm hesitating a bit because an investigation is quite formal. Often, for us, it's just a follow‑up.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Audits are carried out, and certain cases may be easily audited. The Auditor General says that only 2,000 investigations are carried out each year.

[Scott Harris]

Yes, that's the number of investigations for 2023‑24.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Now you're saying that we have fewer international students, so things will get better. However, that isn't the issue. I'm trying to find out whether you have the capacity to carry out more audits or investigations than in 2023‑24.

[Scott Harris]

Yes, but—

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Do you have the capacity to carry out more?

[Scott Harris]

Yes, because we have better tools.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

What's the capacity per year? How many investigations do you carry out?

[Scott Harris]

I can't give you the number right now.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

What makes you say that you're carrying out more investigations?

[Scott Harris]

The reason is that we have better tools. We can work more directly with certain institutions to confirm information more quickly. If we can resolve cases more quickly, it's easier to resolve them completely. It's much more difficult when we need to carry out a lengthy study for each case.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Harris and Mr. Deschênes.

Mr. Davies, you have the floor.

Your five minutes start now.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The announcement today in the news, the Auditor General's report and the questions around the table today are very critical to the entire topic we've been talking about all day.

I need to return to my earlier questions about the express entry program.

The crisis in our medical system across Canada is as equally important as all of the issues we're talking about today. We need to find ways forward for the doctors who are waiting for residency, accreditation and review by provincial authorities. My information tells me that only about 2% of the existing backlog of physicians have been successful through the express entry program.

Mr. Harris, you said that you and the department have a good relationship with provincial partners and private sector partners. Where is the pain point, if we have over 13,000 doctors in Canada who can't get residency or a licence to practise?

I want to juxtapose this against the target of another 5,000 people who may actually end up in a greater backlog. How do we fix that?

[Scott Harris]

I have two points of clarification. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

The first problem you're talking about is, as you're rightly citing, a problem with foreign credential recognition. Those numbers are people who are not available to work in that workforce today because they are not recognized. Their credentials are not recognized and their experience is not recognized.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

These are people who are already in Canada.

[Scott Harris]

Right.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

These are people with medical degrees whom we have stalled in the system because we can't get the paperwork verified. Is that correct?

[Scott Harris]

It's verified or equivalized. I'm not an expert in foreign credential recognition. The colleges in each of the provinces deal with foreign credential recognition. We are partnering with our Health Canada colleagues, our provincial colleagues and others to find ways to streamline this. Some provinces have been incredibly creative in fast-tracking.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

This sort of goes to the heart of all the interprovincial trade barriers. In everything we do in Canada, we seem to have barriers as we go down through jurisdictional levels.

I have two hospitals in my riding that are closing because we can't find primary care doctors, yet we have between 13,000 and 18,000 doctors sitting in Canada waiting to go through that process. With great fanfare, the minister has announced that she wants to add another 5,000. It sounds great, but what about the 13,000, 15,000 or 18,000 who are already sitting here? Is there not a way you can coordinate better with your partners in the industry to fast-track the critical care doctors who mean so much to my region in Niagara?

[Scott Harris]

We're working with our partners. We don't have any authorities or anything that we can use to force colleges to recognize people.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Okay, but you allowed them in the country because they were doctors.

[Scott Harris]

Well, they may have come in for a variety of different reasons. They may not have come in to practise their medicine. They may have come in for family reunification processes.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

But not 18,000.